Published: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 at 1:00 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 at 12:19 a.m.

A rendering for the historic district on Main Street in Sarasota shows brick streets and brick accents on the sidewalk.

COURTESY RENDERING

Construction on Main Street between Gulf Steam Avenue to Five Points Park, and from Orange Avenue to Goodrich Avenue, is scheduled to begin in July and finish by mid-November. The city will also add big trees and all-brick sidewalks along the stretch, and will change parking on one side of the street to parallel spots.

City officials made slight tweaks to a $1.45 million contract with Jon F. Swift, Inc., which will design and engineer the Main Street plan, before signing off on the project Monday.

The Community Redevelopment Agency will fund the project through tax-increment financing, a process that dedicates county and city property tax revenue to certain uses. The 30-year-old agency has covered many projects downtown and is scheduled to sunset in 2016 — though commissioners have talked about extending it.

Late Monday night, Commissioner Terry Turner said he believes the commission needs to let the CRA end. The commissioner, whose term is up in May, said he had to get his concerns on the record.

“We have over-invested in downtown, to good effect. But I think it's time to stop, because there are too many other areas in the city that I think need attention,” Turner said.

The Main Street project has been scaled back from what was envisioned years ago. An original rendering of the project included all-brick streets.

Merchants balked at the changes and said they would disturb business. City staff organized the construction so it would be completed primarily in the summer, when there are fewer people in the city.

The city planned to hire a different contractor to complete another chunk of the plan — to bump out the sidewalks near the Gator Club, Pastry Art and C'est la Vie.

Commissioners decided to potentially have Jon F. Swift complete it as well. But the city will see whether Swift can match offers from the other companies before awarding the project, Deputy City Manager Marlon Brown said.

“We're good to go; it fits perfectly in our schedule,” Swift responded from the audience.

Next year, the city will focus on changes to First Street, which gets a lot of foot traffic but needs to be more “walkable,” City Planner Steve Stancel said. A drawing of planned improvements for the street showed the wider sidewalks, brick crosswalks, ornamental street lights and canopy trees.

Jensen and Group Engineering Consultants LLC will design and engineer the improvements along First Street, between U.S. 41 and Pineapple Avenue. The contract with the group costs $256,040. Commissioners shot down a plan to add a roundabout at Cocoanut Avenue as part of the project and said the money is not there to build it.

“Unless you have a magic pot of dollars I am not aware of,” Turner said to staff.

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